Unfathomable Youth
by Alixtii
Summary: Eve can't quite be controlled, but it is Lilah's job to try.


Lilah navigates her way through the UC Santa Cruz campus with a grim determination. It's not that her days at college were hideously traumatic; far from it, she had a blast, before buckling down for the three years of (luckily mostly figurative) hell which were law school. But she's not the person now she was then, her taste for cheap beer and quick fucks having abated somewhat, and she can think of plenty of places she'd rather be than here, surrounded by the vulgar and unsophisticated excesses of youth, with her office and her apartment at the very top of the list.

But then Holland never asked her what she wanted when he gave her this assignment, did he?

She finally finds Eve in the lobby of the student center, sitting behind a folding table covered in various pastries--mostly cupcakes, cookies, and brownies--and with a piece of blue poster board taped to it declaring "_ΣΑΕΠ Bake Sale_" in sparkly paint. Eve is leaning back in a plastic folding chair, balanced perfectly if precariously, her nose buried in a paperback book. She's dressed in a red tank top and a denim miniskirt, top-of-the-line designer items which along with the rest of her wardrobe cost the firm nearly as much as her tuition itself. Her legs are crossed, with one flip-flop-clad foot resting on the table, and Lilah can see that the bright red polish on her toes matches that on her fingernails. Her hair is pulled back in a simple pony tail.

All in all, the effect is the easy, unforced sexuality of a college girl.

"A bake sale?"

Eve looks up from her book, sees Lilah, and frowns. She sits her chair down so that all four legs are now firmly on the floor. "I don't need a babysitter, Lilah."

"Well, the Senior Partners seem to be of a different opinion," Lilah answers firmly, and Eve doesn't say anything, just puts down her book with an exasperated sigh. "_The Genealogy of Morals_?" Lilah asks, glancing at the title.

"Distribution requirement," Eve explains, then looks at Lilah. "I'm nineteen years old--or at least that's what it says on my driver's license, the one I _don't_ use to buy beer. Twenty, almost. I really don't need you mothering me, you know?"

Lilah laughs, because the image of her as a mother is an absurd one. "I don't think you have to worry about that one," she says, and reaches out and slides the strap of Eve's tank top over so that it covers her bra strap.

"Perhaps not," Eve admits, thoughtfully. "Is this about Bethany?"

Lilah frowns. "Bethany?" she asks, guardedly.

"The Chaulk girl. I know you lost her," Eve says with a sly smile as she examines her fingernails. "To the vampire."

"How do you know that?" If Lindsey is sniffing around in her projects, there _will_ be hell to pay. She's just not sure yet which of them will end up paying it, and an unpredictable factor in this assignment is the last thing she needs.

Eve looks up at Lilah triumphantly. "I have my sources too, Lilah." She places a hand on her knee and, damn it, she _knows_. Knows that the Senior Partners designed her body to be a negotiating stratagem all in itself, and knows how to use it as one.

"You don't have to worry about losing me," Eve promises. "Where would I go?" She laughs coldly. "I know the Senior Partners will find me wherever I go. It's not like there's any possibility of escape for me even if I wanted to."

What Eve says is true, of course. She's much more valuable to the firm than the Chaulk girl ever was. "_Do_ you want to?"

"Would it be safe to tell you if I did?"

"You can tell me anything," Lilah says, even though she knows that Eve knows it is a lie, because she still feels somehow that's what she is supposed to do. "You bake anything?"

Eve nods, points at a set of chocolate cupcakes, covered with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles, at the end of the table. "A dollar each," she says.

Lilah hands her a dollar, which Eve dutifully places in the metal cashbox next to her, and takes one of the cupcakes. It's too dry, but she supposes that Eve can't really be blamed. Baking's not a skill that the Partners really would have bothered to give her.

Eve's not looking to her expectantly to find out what Lilah thinks, though, but has opened her book and has gone back to studying. She studiously ignores Lilah for the next ten minutes until her replacement--a girl dressed all in black and who speaks with a strong Eastern European accent--shows up to relieve her. Lilah follows Eve back to her room.

"I need to take a shower," Eve says to Lilah when they get there, a note of frustration finally making its way into her voice. "I'm going out tonight." When Lilah doesn't move, she adds, "If you aren't going to go, at least close the door."

Lilah pushes the door towards its frame. It's still not shut, but now it's only a couple of inches ajar, and apparently that's good enough for Eve because she begins to slip out of her clothing, casting off garments as if Lilah weren't even in the room. Lilah feigns an equal indifference as she watches the display with an intent impassivity.

"What exactly are you doing?" she asks as Eve wraps herself in a towel.

"I'm going to take a shower," Eve answers, "like I said."

Lilah stops her, puts an arm between Eve and the door. "Is this really why you're here?" she asks. "Bake sales and parties?"

"I don't know why the fuck they sent me here," Eve admits with sudden indignant honesty. "If they wanted me to be an expert in German philosophy, they'd have just dumped the information in my brain along with K to 12. Or maybe they did, and I just can't access it, like half the stuff they apparently put in there and then locked up so I couldn't use it. So the way I figure they might as well have sent me here for this, and if I can have a chance of having a good time, I'm going to go for it."

And then she pauses, looks at Lilah, and there's a moment of vulnerability in Eve's eyes right before she leans over, brings her lips to Lilah's--

--and Lilah knows she shouldn't be doing this, that she'll never be able to control Eve after this (_like I was really ever able to control her before?_), that it's a betrayal of trust (_like she was ever really stupid enough to trust me?_) and an abdication of her responsibilities, but doesn't care about any of that, doesn't care about anything but getting that towel off the girl (_girl_, _is she really just a girl?_) and she does it, because she's never been afraid for reaching for what she wants--

And then Eve laughs, pulls away, picks up her towel and replaces it around her body. "I really have to go _cleanse_ myself now," she says as she slips out of the room and down the hallway, and the dig stings more than it should, because it shouldn't be able to pierce Lilah's tough skin at all, but it does.

Lilah sits down on Eve's college dorm bed, underneath a poster of Hugh Grant, stares at the girlish memorabilia lining the walls and thinks of Eve. They made her young and pretty and hot and nubile and limber and it's all more than Lilah can handle, so fuck knows she hopes Eve knows what she is doing, because Lilah doesn't have a damned clue.


End file.
